Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940 1965

M >> Morris J. MacGregor Jr. >> Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940 1965

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[Footnote 4-32: Ltr, Maj Gen Charles F. B. Price to
Brig Gen Keller E. Rockey, 24 Apr 43; 26132, Ref
Br, Hist Div, HQMC.]

General Price must have been entertaining second thoughts, since two
depot companies were already en route to Samoa at his request.
Nevertheless, because of the "importance" of his reservations the
matter was brought to the attention of the Director of Plans and
Policies.[4-33] As a result, the assignment of the 7th and 8th Depot
Companies to Samoa proved short-lived. Arriving on 13 October 1943,
they were redeployed to the Ellice Islands in the Micronesia group the
next day.

[Footnote 4-33: Brig Gen Rockey for S-C files, 4 Jun
43, Memo, G. F. Good, Div of Plans and Policies, to
Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, 3 Sep 43. Both
attached to Price Ltr, see n. 32 above.]

Thanks to the operations of the ammunition and depot companies, a
large number of black marines, serving in small, efficient labor
units, often exposed to enemy fire, made a valuable contribution. That
so many black marines participated, at least from time to time, in the
fighting may explain in part the fact that relatively few racial
incidents took place in the corps during the war. But if many Negroes
served in forward areas, they were all nevertheless severely
restricted in opportunity. Black marines were excluded from the corps'
celebrated combat divisions and its air arm. They were also excluded
from the Women's Reserve, and not until the last months of the war did
the corps accept its first black officer candidates. Marine spokesmen
justified the latter exclusion on the grounds that the corps lacked
facilities--that is, segregated facilities--for training black
officers.[4-34]

[Footnote 4-34: Ltr, Phillips D. Carleton, Asst to
Dir, MC Reserve, to Welford Wilson, U.S. Employment
Service, 27 Mar 43, AF-464, MC files. For more on
black officers in the Marine Corps, see Chapter 9.]

These exclusions did not escape the attention of the civil rights
spokesmen who took their demands to Secretary Knox and the White
House.[4-35] It was to little avail. With the exception of the officer
candidates in 1945, the separation of the races remained absolute, and
Negroes continued to be excluded from the main combat units of the
Marine Corps.

[Footnote 4-35: See, for example, Ltr, Mary Findley
Allen, Interracial Cmte of Federation of Churches,
to Mrs. Roosevelt (ca. 9 Mar 43); Memo, SecNav for
Rear Adm Jacobs, 22 Mar 43, P-25; Memo, R. C.
Kilmartin, Jr., Div of Plans and Policies, for Dir,
Div of Plans and Policies, 25 Sep 43, AO-434. All
in Hist Div, HQMC.]

Personal prejudices aside, the desire for social harmony and the fear
of the unknown go far toward explaining the Marine Corps' wartime
racial policy. A small, specialized, and racially exclusive
organization, the Marine Corps reacted to the directives of the
Secretary of the Navy and the necessities of wartime operation with a
rigid segregation policy, its black troops restricted to about 4
percent of its enlisted strength. A large part of this black strength
was assigned to labor units where Negroes performed valuable and
sometimes dangerous service in the Pacific war. Complaints from civil
rights advocates abounded, but neither protests nor the cost to
military efficiency of duplicating training facilities were of (p. 112)
sufficient moment to overcome the sentiment against significant racial
change, which was kept to a minimum. Judged strictly in terms of
keeping racial harmony, the corps policy must be considered a success.
Ironically this very success prevented any modification of that policy
during the war.

[Illustration: CREWMEN OF USCG LIFEBOAT STATION, PEA ISLAND, NORTH
CAROLINA, _ready surf boat for launching_.]

_New Roles for Black Coast Guardsmen_

The Coast Guard's pre-World War II experience with Negroes differed
from that of the other branches of the naval establishment. Unlike the
Marine Corps, the Coast Guard could boast a tradition of black
enlistment stretching far back into the previous century. Although it
shared this tradition with the Navy, the Coast Guard, unlike the Navy,
had always severely restricted Negroes both in terms of numbers
enlisted and jobs assigned. A small group of Negroes manned a
lifesaving station at Pea Island on North Carolina's outer banks.
Negroes also served as crewmen at several lighthouses and on tenders
in the Mississippi River basin; all were survivors of the transfer of
the Lighthouse Service to the Coast Guard in 1939. These guardsmen
were almost always segregated, although a few served in integrated
crews or even commanded large Coast Guard vessels and small harbor (p. 113)
craft.[4-36] They also served in the separate Steward's Branch,
although it might be argued that the small size of most Coast Guard
vessels integrated in fact men who were segregated in theory.

[Footnote 4-36: Capt. Michael Healy, who was of Irish
and Afro-American heritage, served as commanding
officer of the _Bear_ and other major Coast Guard
vessels. At his retirement in 1903 Healy was the
third ranking officer in the U.S. Revenue Cutter
Service. See Robert E. Greene, _Black Defenders of
America, 1775-1973_ (Chicago: Johnson Publishing
Company, 1974), p. 139. For pre-World War II
service of Negroes in the Coast Guard, see Truman
R. Strobridge, _Blacks and Lights: A Brief
Historical Survey of Blacks and the Old U.S.
Lighthouse Service_ (Office of the USCG Historian,
1975); H. Kaplan and J. Hunt, _This Is the United
States Coast Guard_ (Cambridge, Md.: Cornell
Maritime Press, 1971); Rodney H. Benson, "Romance
and Story of Pea Island Station," _U.S. Coast Guard
Magazine_ (November 1932):52; George Reasons and
Sam Patrick, "Richard Etheridge--Saved Sailors,"
Washington _Star_, November 13, 1971. For the
position of Negroes on the eve of World War II
induction, see Enlistment of Men of Colored Race
(201), 23 Jan 42, Hearings Before the General Board
of the Navy, 1942.]

[Illustration: COAST GUARD RECRUITS _at Manhattan Beach Training
Station, New York_.]

The lot of the black Coast Guardsman on a small cutter was not
necessarily a happy one. To a surprising extent the enlisted men of
the prewar Coast Guard were drawn from the eastern shore and outer
banks region of the Atlantic coast where service in the Coast Guard
had become a strong family tradition among a people whose attitude
toward race was rarely progressive. Although these men tolerated an
occasional small black Coast Guard crew or station, they might well
resist close service with individual Negroes. One commander reported
that racial harassment drove the solitary black in the prewar (p. 114)
crew of the cutter _Calypso_ out of the service.[4-37]

[Footnote 4-37: Interv, author with Capt W. C.
Capron, USCGR, 20 Feb 75, CMH files.]

Coast Guard officials were obviously mindful of such potential
troubles when, at Secretary Knox's bidding, they joined in the General
Board's discussion of the expanded use of Negroes in the general
service in January 1942. In the name of the Coast Guard, Commander
Lyndon Spencer agreed with the objections voiced by the Navy and the
Marine Corps, adding that the Coast Guard problem was "enhanced
somewhat by the fact that our units are small and contacts between the
men are bound to be closer." He added that while the Coast Guard was
not "anxious to take on any additional problems at this time, if we
have to we will take some of them [Negroes]."[4-38]

[Footnote 4-38: Enlistment of Men of Colored Race
(201), 23 Jan 42, Hearings Before the General Board
of the Navy, 1942.]

When President Roosevelt made it clear that Negroes were to be
enlisted, Coast Guard Commandant Rear Adm. Russell R. Waesche had a
plan ready. The Coast Guard would enlist approximately five hundred
Negroes in the general service, he explained to the chairman of the
General Board, Vice Adm. Walton R. Sexton. Some three hundred of these
men would be trained for duty on small vessels, the rest for shore
duty under the captain of the port of six cities throughout the United
States. Although his plan made no provision for the training of black
petty officers, the commandant warned Admiral Sexton that 50 to 65
percent of the crew in these small cutters and miscellaneous craft
held such ratings, and it followed that Negroes would eventually be
allowed to try for such ratings.[4-39]

[Footnote 4-39: Memo, Cmdt, CG, for Adm Sexton, Chmn
of Gen Bd, 2 Feb 42, sub: Enlistment of Men of the
Colored Race in Other Than Messman Branch, attached
to Enlistment of Men of Colored Race (201), 23 Jan
42, Hearings Before the General Board of the Navy,
1942.]

Further refining the plan for the General Board on 24 February,
Admiral Waesche listed eighteen vessels, mostly buoy tenders and
patrol boats, that would be assigned black crews. All black enlistees
would be sent to the Manhattan Beach Training Station, New York, for a
basic training "longer and more extensive" than the usual recruit
training. After recruit training the men would be divided into groups
according to aptitude and experience and would undergo advanced
instruction before assignment. Those trained for ship duty would be
grouped into units of a size to enable them to go aboard and assume
all but the petty officer ratings of the designated ships. The
commandant wanted to initiate this program with a group of 150 men. No
other Negroes would be enlisted until the first group had been trained
and assigned to duty for a period long enough to permit a survey of
its performance. Admiral Waesche warned that the whole program was
frankly new and untried and was therefore subject to modification as
it evolved.[4-40]

[Footnote 4-40: Memo, Cmdt, CG, for Chmn of Gen Bd,
24 Feb 42. sub: Enlistment of Men of the Colored
Race in Other Than Messman Branch, P-701, attached
to Recs of Gen Bd, No 421 (Serial 204-X),
OpNavArchives.]

The plan was a major innovation in the Coast Guard's manpower policy.
For the first time a number of Negroes, approximately 1.6 percent of
the guard's total enlisted complement, would undergo regular (p. 115)
recruit and specialized training.[4-41] More than half would serve
aboard ship at close quarters with their white petty officers. The
rest would be assigned to port duty with no special provision for
segregated service. If the provision for segregating nonrated Coast
Guardsmen when they were at sea was intended to prevent the
development of racial antagonism, the lack of a similar provision for
Negroes ashore was puzzling; but whatever the Coast Guard's reasoning
in the matter, the General Board was obviously concerned with the
provisions for segregation in the plan. Its chairman told Secretary
Knox that the assignment of Negroes to the captains of the ports was a
practical use of Negroes in wartime, since these men could be
segregated in service units. But their assignment to small vessels,
Admiral Sexton added, meant that "the necessary segregation and
limitation of authority would be increasingly difficult to maintain"
and "opportunities for advancement would be few." For that reason, he
concluded, the employment of such black crews was practical but not
desirable.[4-42]

[Footnote 4-41: Unless otherwise noted, all
statistics on Coast Guard personnel are derived
from Memo, Chief, Statistical Services Div, for
Chief, Pub Information Div, 30 Mar 54, sub: Negro
Personnel, Officers and Enlisted; Number of, Office
of the USCG Historian; and "Coast Guard Personnel
Growth Chart," _Report of the Secretary of the
Navy-Fiscal 1945_, p. A-15.]

[Footnote 4-42: Memo, Chmn of Gen Bd for SecNav, 20
Mar 42, sub: Enlistment of Men of the Colored Race
in Other Than Messman Branch, G.B. No. 421 (Serial
204), OpNavArchives.]

The General Board was overruled, and the Coast Guard proceeded to
recruit its first group of 150 black volunteers, sending them to
Manhattan Beach for basic training in the spring of 1942. The small
size of the black general service program precluded the establishment
of a separate training station, but the Negroes were formed into a
separate training company at Manhattan Beach. While training classes
and other duty activities were integrated, sleeping and messing
facilities were segregated. Although not geographically separated as
were the black sailors at Camp Smalls or the marines at Montford
Point, the black recruits of the separate training company at
Manhattan Beach were effectively impressed with the reality of
segregation in the armed forces.[4-43]

[Footnote 4-43: Interv, author with Ira H. Coakley,
26 Feb 75, CMH files. Coakley was a recruit in one
of the first black training companies at Manhattan
Beach.]

After taking a four-week basic course, those who qualified were
trained as radiomen, pharmacists, yeomen, coxswains, fire controlmen,
or in other skills in the seaman branch.[4-44] Those who did not so
qualify were transferred for further training in preparation for their
assignment to the captains of the ports. Groups of black Coast
Guardsmen, for example, were sent to the Pea Island Station after
their recruit training for several weeks' training in beach duties.
Similar groups of white recruits were also sent to the Pea Island
Station for training under the black chief boatswain's mate in
charge.[4-45] By August 1942 some three hundred Negroes had been
recruited, trained, and assigned to general service duties under the
new program. At the same time the Coast Guard continued to recruit
hundreds of Negroes for its separate Steward's Branch.

[Footnote 4-44: For a brief account of the Coast
Guard recruit training program, see Nelson,
"Integration of the Negro," pp. 84-87, and "A Black
History in World War II," _Octagon_ (February
1972): 31-32.]

[Footnote 4-45: Log of Pea Island Station, 1942,
Berry Collection, USCG Headquarters.]

The commandant's program for the orderly induction and assignment (p. 116)
of a limited number of black volunteers was, as in the case of the
Navy and Marine Corps, abruptly terminated in December 1942 when the
President ended volunteer enlistment for most military personnel. For
the rest of the war the Coast Guard, along with the Navy and Marine
Corps, came under the strictures of the Selective Service Act,
including its racial quota system. The Coast Guard, however, drafted
relatively few men, issuing calls for a mere 22,500 and eventually
inducting only 15,296. But more than 12 percent of its calls (2,500
men between February and November 1943) and 13 percent of all those
drafted (1,667) were Negro. On the average, 137 Negroes and 1,000
whites were inducted each month during 1943.[4-46] Just over 5,000
Negroes served as Coast Guardsmen in World War II.[4-47]

[Footnote 4-46: Selective Service System, _Special
Groups_, 2:196-201.]

[Footnote 4-47: Testimony of Coast Guard
Representatives Before the President's Committee on
Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Services, 18 Mar 49, p. 8.]

As it did for the Navy and Marine Corps, the sudden influx of Negroes
from Selective Service necessitated a revision of the Coast Guard's
personnel planning. Many of the new men could be assigned to steward
duties, but by January 1943 the Coast Guard already had some 1,500
stewards and the branch could absorb only half of the expected black
draftees. The rest would have to be assigned to the general
service.[4-48] And here the organization and mission of the Coast Guard,
far more so than those of the Navy and Marine Corps, militated against
the formation of large segregated units. The Coast Guard had no use
for the amorphous ammunition and depot companies and the large Seabee
battalions of the rest of the naval establishment. For that reason the
large percentage of its black seamen in the general service
(approximately 37 percent of all black Coast Guardsmen) made a
considerable amount of integration inevitable; the small number of
Negroes in the general service (1,300 men, less than 1 percent of the
total enlisted strength of the Coast Guard) made integration socially
acceptable.

[Footnote 4-48: USCG Public Relations Div, Negroes in
the U.S. Coast Guard, July 1943, Office of the USCG
Historian.]

The majority of black Coast Guardsmen were only peripherally concerned
with this wartime evolution of racial policy. Some 2,300 Negroes
served in the racially separate Steward's Branch, performing the same
duties in officer messes and quarters as stewards in the Navy and
Marine Corps. But not quite, for the size of Coast Guard vessels and
their crews necessitated the use of stewards at more important battle
stations. For example, a group of stewards under the leadership of a
black gun captain manned the three-inch gun on the afterdeck of the
cutter _Campbell_ and won a citation for helping to destroy an enemy
submarine in February 1943.[4-49] The Personnel Division worked to make
the separate Steward's Branch equal to the rest of the service in
terms of promotion and emoluments, and there were instances when
individual stewards successfully applied for ratings in general
service.[4-50] Again, the close quarters aboard Coast Guard (p. 117)
vessels made the talents of stewards for general service duties more
noticeable to officers.[4-51] The evidence suggests, however, that the
majority of the black stewards, about 63 percent of all the Negroes in
the Coast Guard, continued to function as servants throughout the war.
As in the rest of the naval establishment, the stewards in the Coast
Guard were set apart not only by their limited service but also by
different uniforms and the fact that chief stewards were not regarded
as chief petty officers. In fact, the rank of chief steward was not
introduced until the war led to an enlargement of the Coast Guard.[4-52]

[Footnote 4-49: Ltr, Cmdt, USCG, to Cmdr, Third CG
District, 18 Jan 52, sub: ETHERIDGE, Louis C; ...
Award of the Bronze Star Medal, P15, BuPersRecs;
USCG Pub Rel Div, Negroes in the U.S. Coast Guard,
Jul 43.]

[Footnote 4-50: USCG Pers Bull 37-42, 31 Mar 43, sub:
Apprentice Seamen and Mess Attendants, Third Class,
Advancement of, USCG Cen Files 61A701.]

[Footnote 4-51: Intervs, author with Cmdt Carlton
Skinner, USCGR, 18 Feb 75, and with Capron, CMH
files.]

[Footnote 4-52: For discussion of limited service of
Coast Guard stewards, see Testimony of Coast Guard
Representatives Before the President's Committee on
Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed
Services, 18 Mar 49, pp. 27-31.]

[Illustration: STEWARDS AT BATTLE STATION _on the afterdeck of the
cutter Campbell_.]

The majority of black guardsmen in general service served ashore under
the captains of the ports, local district commanders, or at
headquarters establishments. Men in these assignments included
hundreds in security and labor details, but more and more served as
yeomen, radio operators, storekeepers, and the like. Other Negroes
were assigned to local Coast Guard stations, and a second all-black
station was organized during the war at Tiana Beach, New York. Still
others participated in the Coast Guard's widespread beach patrol (p. 118)
operations. Organized in 1942 as outposts and lookouts against
possible enemy infiltration of the nation's extensive coastlines, the
patrols employed more than 11 percent of all the Coast Guard's
enlisted men. This large group included a number of horse and dog
patrols employing only black guardsmen.[4-53] In all, some 2,400 black
Coast Guardsmen served in the shore establishment.

[Footnote 4-53: USCG Historical Section, The Coast
Guard at War, 18:1-10, 36.]

[Illustration: SHORE LEAVE IN SCOTLAND. (_The distinctive uniform of
the Coast Guard steward is shown_.)]

The assignment of so many Negroes to shore duties created potential
problems for the manpower planners, who were under orders to rotate
sea and shore assignments periodically.[4-54] Given the many black
general duty seamen denied sea duty because of the Coast Guard's
segregation policy but promoted into the more desirable shore-based
jobs to the detriment of whites waiting for rotation to such
assignments, the possibility of serious racial trouble was obvious.

[Footnote 4-54: USCG Pers Bull 44-42, 25 Jun 42, sub:
Relief of Personnel Assigned to Seagoing Units,
USCG Cen Files 61A701.]

At least one officer in Coast Guard headquarters was concerned enough
to recommend that the policy be revised. With two years' service in
Greenland waters, the last year as executive officer of the USCGC
_Northland_, Lt. Carlton Skinner had firsthand experience with the
limitations of the Coast Guard's racial policy. While on the
_Northland_ Skinner had recommended that a skilled black mechanic, (p. 119)
then serving as a steward's mate, be awarded a motor mechanic petty
officer rating only to find his recommendation rejected on racial
grounds. The rating was later awarded after an appeal by Skinner, but
the incident set the stage for the young officer's later involvement
with the Coast Guard's racial traditions. On shore duty at Coast Guard
headquarters in June 1943, Skinner recommended to the commandant that
a group of black seamen be provided with some practical seagoing
experience under a sympathetic commander in a completely integrated
operation. He emphasized practical experience in an integrated
setting, he later revealed, because he was convinced that men with
high test scores and specialized training did not necessarily make the
best sailors, especially when their training was segregated. Skinner
envisioned a widespread distribution of Negroes throughout the Coast
Guard's seagoing vessels. His recommendation was no "experiment in
social democracy," he later stressed, but was a design for "an
efficient use of manpower to help win a war."[4-55]

[Footnote 4-55: Interv, author with Skinner; Ltr,
Skinner to author, 29 Jun 75, in CMH files. The
Skinner memorandum to Admiral Waesche, like so many
of the personnel policy papers of the U.S. Coast
Guard from the World War II period, cannot be
located. For a detailed discussion of Skinner's
motives and experiences, see his testimony before
the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment
and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 25 Apr 49,
pp. 1-24.]

Although Skinner's immediate superior forwarded the recommendation as
"disapproved," Admiral Waesche accepted the idea. In November 1943
Skinner found himself transferred to the USS _Sea Cloud_ (IX 99), a
patrol ship operating in the North Atlantic as part of Task Force 24
reporting on weather conditions from four remote locations in northern
waters.[4-56] The commandant also arranged for the transfer of black
apprentice seamen, mostly from Manhattan Beach, to the _Sea Cloud_ in
groups of about twenty men, gradually increasing the number of black
seamen in the ship's complement every time it returned to home
station. Skinner, promoted to lieutenant commander and made captain of
the _Sea Cloud_ on his second patrol, later decided that the
commandant had "figured he could take a chance on me and the _Sea
Cloud_."[4-57]